My challenge as an entrepreneur (42) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

Doing free jobs for people to convince them about what you can do and the things you are doing has become my best form of advertisement in recent years but it has come with the challenge of forfeiting rewards over and over again.

In order to convince some people that I could do a very good proposal I had to give them some free proposals to convince them and what I have seen after that is that they begin to recommend me to their friends and colleagues in their work place. Some of these proposals cost me a lot of time and even my own materials yet the people who are receiving the proposals don’t know the value of what they are receiving but I kept doing the proposals as long as they wanted them. Some of them tried to discourage me and I had to run after some others despite the fact that they were the ones who came to me that they wanted proposals. I spend my money calling and when they get the proposals some of them come up with something new. By implication they expect you to go back to work. They want your time, your materials, your expertise, and the best of anything they can get but they don’t want to pay.

Sometimes I sat for hours thinking about when the right people will come. I looked forward to the people who can pay for my services and people who would take the services to big companies so that big recommendations can come. I really wanted the big clients who have some big projects to handle but for a long time they were not forth coming.

At a time I nearly gave up on doing so many free things for people but I had to come to a conclusion that some of these people who are getting my free services are not going to remain on the same spot. They will keep improving and they will keep getting bigger. As they get bigger they will have more resources to be able to handle the proposals and other consultancy services I was rendering. This meant that for some time I had to go hungry, which happened over and over again because there was nothing to eat, just to serve some other people. I was serving some of those people because I saw their prospects and I could imagine how far they were going. For some others I do not know how far they are going but I just did free services to help them with their dreams.

I have been in some situations were I render some services to some people and don’t even expect them to think twice before giving me something to appreciate my service but they just keep looking at me. I once went to place to speak and I was to sleep overnight. I had never been there before and had exhausted the cash on me before I got to my destination. I only became thankful for the fact that I had asked a friend to follow me. It was the friend who followed me that paid the taxi fare to the venue and from the venue.

I send some other materials to some people expecting something in return and some of them promise heaven and earth. If they have kept to their promise I probably would be getting the promise tomorrow.

The only way out is not to look at what I am going through but where I am going to.